“I am bruised all over thanks to you, oaf !” Aelic said bitterly.
“Aelic!” Antoinette said, her eyes wide. “Sir Rogan saved your life!”
“Keep out of this!” he replied angrily. “I do not answer to the likes of you!” His eyes flashed angrily, and he turned back to Sir Rogan.
“No, she is right, you ungrateful imp!” Sir Rogan growled. “I am beginning to regret that I did not leave you for the teeth and talons of the illgrets!”
“Perhaps if Sir Rogan did not have to lug you around,” Nock said, his voice high and agitated, “we might never have come to the Sepulcher! Now, it is too late! We are all going to die!”
“We will all be drawn under the earth,” Lady Merewen cried. “Buried alive until the long sleep takes us!”
“Nonsense! You might die, you and the archer,” Tobias yelled. “But I will find a way out!”
“Tell me again, Pathfinder,” Sir Oswyn interjected, “have you found us any safe way to this point? Admit it. You are out of your reckoning here. You have not the skill to direct us on this mission, do you?”
“And what great role do you play?” Tobias asked. “The knights of Paragory will not be frightened by your lute—though your playing leaves much to be desired!”
Antoinette stared in disbelief from knight to knight.
“Miserable whelp,” Sir Oswyn fired back. “You would miss my fire powder—you all would—for you would have breathed your last were it not for my skills!”
“Close your bickering mouths!” commanded Kaliam. “This is getting us nowhere! The wolvins may come back, and we cannot traipse about waiting!”
“Is this counsel like your last?” Farix asked. “What magnificent wisdom it was to enter the Blackwood. Now look at us!”
“Why, you disrespectful wraith!” Kaliam drew his great broadsword and stepped toward Farix.
“Come any closer, Sentinel, and I will wash this hollow in your cowardly blood!”
“Wait, stop!” Antoinette cried. “Have you all gone mad?!”
Aelic shrugged and brandished Fury.
“No you don’t!” said Antoinette. She snapped the flat of her sword on Aelic’s hand, and he dropped the blade.
“You cut me!” Aelic screamed. “You witless wretch! You have cut open my blade hand! I will throttle you for that offense!”
Antoinette looked at Aelic’s hand. There was no blood at all. It was unblemished. “No, Sir Aelic! Look again at your hand! It is not even marked!”
“It bleeds!” Aidan shrieked.
“We are all going to die!” Nock exclaimed. “Whether by illgret or wolvin, we are lost in this horrid place!”
“Shut your mouth, I said!” Tobias yelled, and he brought his staff around sharply and struck Nock in the back. He flew forward and disappeared under the mist.
“Stop it, all of you!” Antoinette pleaded. “Fighting and quarreling? This is not how servants of King Eliam behave! Don’t you see? You are doing the enemy’s work! It’s this place—it’s the hate of the Seven Sleepers!”
The others lowered their weapons a little. Nock rose up from the swirling mist and shook his head.
“What a victory for Paragor this would be,” Antoinette cried out, “if we slay each other while he suffers no loss himself! Don’t you remember the slaughter at Mithegard? Sir Rogan, so many of your kinsmen were slain by Paragor’s minions—are you so anxious to join them? And Nock, you lost your brother to the enemy. Will you now fight for his killer against his friends?”
Nock stared absently, but then his eyes widened with recognition. “Listen to her!” Nock yelled. “She is right! This place is cursed with malice. Kaliam, you said it yourself. The ill will of the Seven took hold of me as well! We are not in our right minds! I am sorry to those I have offended. Rouse yourselves from this evil fog! Turn aside from your fury and appeal to King Eliam for aid before it is too late!”
Kaliam jolted and stood as one awakened by cold water. “May the King forgive me,” he cried, “for what I purposed in my heart to do!”
“Forgive us all!” bellowed Mallik. “No wonder that the wolvins left us here! They would return and feast upon the carnage we made of ourselves!”
“Has anyone lost anything so precious that it is worth our lives?” Sir Oswyn asked. “If nay, then let us be off !”
“Who needs a dagger?” Sir Rogan said. “I still have my axe!”
“Good, then,” said Kaliam. “Tobias, what direction?”
“You know very well that it is south,” Tobias answered. “But thank you for your confidence in my abilities.”
“Mallik!” Kaliam called.
“Say no more,” he replied. He swept up his hammer and went to work on the southern bank of the hollow. In a few moments, he had pounded out a steep stair from the hillside, and the twelve emerged from the Sepulcher.
“What will happen?” Antoinette asked Nock as she took a last look at the shrouded hollow. “Will they escape?”
“The roots of the blackwood are strong,” Nock replied. “Even in death they rival the strongest blades made of murynstil! But, if the Seven should rise, then . . . there will be trouble.”
“We must warn King Eliam as soon as we can,” Sir Gabriel said as they emerged from the hollow and began walking. “This is a serious threat too near to our city. Nock, I feel a fool for not believing you.”
“He is no fool who studies the word of King Eliam,” said Nock. “Your knowledge of Alleble’s lore is profound, but if the ancient legends are true, then we may be forced to confront evils beyond any of our wisdom. I believe the Seven Sleepers are stirring . . . slowly awakening. And I fear what that could mean.”
“The Wyrm Lord,” Oswyn whispered.
26
THE FIRSTBORN
Having given up hope of reaching the Forest Road before the massive army from Paragory, the twelve trekked south and west through the Blackwood. The terrain did not improve, and so their progress remained slow. Kaliam did not want to stop, but he felt and saw the weariness that they all bore. He allowed the team to halt—but only for enough time to catch their breaths or eat something quickly from their provisions. There was no time for fires.
Lady Merewen handed Antoinette a full waterskin. “Please, take this to replace your own.”
“And one of mine,” Aelic said.
Antoinette smiled warmly at her friends and took a long drink from one of the skins. “Thank you,” she said to them. And they were off again, seeking the road at the best speed they could manage.
“Hold!” Nock suddenly yelled from the front of the team.
“Is it the Forest Road?” Mallik called out hopefully.
“Nay,” answered the archer. “But it may be something of value to us. Come and look.”
The rest of the twelve caught up and found Nock examining a broken blackwood sapling.
“How in The Realm did you see that in this ruinous forest of shadow?” Mallik asked.
“In Yewland, the finest archers train their eyes to hunt in the darkness,” Nock replied. “I am in my element among the trees. Tobias, come tell me what you think.”
They followed as Tobias and Nock slowly advanced. Branches of young trees had been roughly hewn, gouges had been cut into the base of the larger trees, and some saplings had been broken nearly in two.
Tobias bent very low to the ground and strained to see. “Look here,” he said. “There are the imprints of a small band of warriors. No more than a hundred, I would guess.”
“The Glimpses of Yewland would not dare to harm the trees in this forest,” said Nock. “So I can only conclude that the enemy made this path.”
“Nock, I do not believe it was the force we saw this morning,” Tobias said. “Do you agree?”
The archer nodded. “Tobias is right. This path was made by a force numbering a hundred or less—rather smaller than the several legions observed before. It is also clear from the cuts in the wood and the coverage of the tracks that this path is far
too old—made perhaps even as long ago as a full season.”
“So what does that mean?” asked Sir Rogan.
“It means,” said Lady Merewen, “that the enemy has been prowling the Blackwood without our knowledge for some time.”
“Stealing this precious wood for their weapons, no doubt,” said Nock with a sneer.
“I wonder,” replied Kaliam, and he was quiet.
“Their trail heads in more or less the direction we wish to go,” said Tobias. “Shall we follow and see what may be seen?”
“Yes,” Kaliam said. “I think we should.”
The twelve had little trouble following the winding path of their foes, for the Paragor Knights had left behind quite a trail of destruction. They had gone perhaps a mile when Nock said, “It could be that my memory is flawed or perhaps some trick the shadows play upon my eyes, but something about this way seems familiar to me.”
“But you said this path was made by Paragor Knights, that your kin would not destroy the trees,” said Antoinette.
“No, Lady Antoinette, we do not harm the trees. We collect the fallen, but only what the forest gives us. But there is something I remember, ah—I cannot be sure.”
A little farther up the path, Kaliam stopped the group. “There is a strange smell in the air,” he said, and his brows furrowed deeply. “It is very faint. Do any of you smell it also?”
“I have been running behind Sir Mallik,” said Farix. “The only thing I have smelled is his great stench!”
“Ha! Very amusing, Master Farix.” Mallik grinned. “Just be glad I have not been eating the spicy cuisine of my Blue Mountain kin. That would indeed be a rude aroma!”
Everyone shared a laugh, except Sir Oswyn. “No, Kaliam is right. There is a scent on the air. It smells of something burned . . . of charred wood.”
For a moment Nock stopped and stood transfixed. Then he said cheerfully, “Now I know why this seemed so familiar! This is the way to the Arch of Reverence! The passage to the Ancient One! Come, follow me, and prepare to see one of the great wonders of The Realm!” And he sprinted up the path.
The rest of the twelve followed swiftly. At last they came to a place where the trees lined up on both sides of the path, and their immense boughs arched in such a way as to form a natural tunnel. Nock stopped at the entrance, grinned broadly, and then raced into the forest tunnel. The others followed close behind.
Antoinette was in awe, staring at the tunnel as she ran. The smooth black trunks formed the sides of the tunnel, and the great boughs above intertwined so closely that no light illuminated their path. Soon, they walked in total darkness. “The smell of smoke grows stronger,” Sir Oswyn whispered.
They emerged in a vast clearing, and the twelve found it easier to see compared to the profound darkness in the tunnel.
Nock doubled over and fell to his knees as if he had been punched hard in the stomach. “Nooo!” he cried. “Please, noooo!”
In the center of the clearing, a great tree had been felled. Such a tree, Antoinette had never seen. It was impossible to tell how tall it had been, for its treetop had crashed into the forest beyond the clearing. Its trunk was as thick as a house, and gigantic limbs sprawled away from it in every direction. But its limbs were bare, and it was now plain why the air reeked of smoke. The great tree had been burned, charred to a husk in many places. All that remained unburned was a vast circular stump.
“Why?” Nock cried. “Why do this thing? They could have taken all that they needed and more from the deadfall! Why slay Sil Arnoth, the Ancient One?!”
Mallik stood by Nock and put a hand on his shoulder. “Nock, my friend,” he said in a very low voice. “There are many great trees among the blue sequoias of my homeland—magnificent, sturdy, and towering. But I have never seen an equal to this one. And something about it speaks to me of its history. I am sorry for your loss.”
“He is the firstborn of all trees in The Realm, the grandest of all the great ones. When we were young, Bolt and I used to climb in his lowest branches while our parents collected fallen limbs. I do not understand . . . why lay him low for lumber when there was no need?”
Sir Gabriel strode along a stretch of the fallen giant. “I do not believe the enemy was after the wood of this great father of trees,” he said. “For there are no signs of harvesting—only fire.”
“They did this out of their own depravity, then,” Mallik muttered. “I will lay low the one who took an axe to this great tree.”
Nock stood up and smiled at his hammer-wielding friend. “That is only if you can get to him before one of my arrows finds him. But I wonder if either of us will want to face the warrior mighty enough to fell the Ancient One. And I wonder that there exists an axe blade so sharp as to cut through the King of Blackwoods.”
“Nock, come and look at this!” Lady Merewen said. She stood by the enormous stump of the fallen tree.
Nock and the others joined her and gasped at what they saw. The stump was thirty feet across and yet the cut was not ragged. It was as if an enormous blade had swept through the tree’s base, felling it in one stroke. “Verily, you are right about the warrior and the weapon,” Lady Merewen said. “For no ordinary axe could have shorn through this mighty bark, leaving a cut so clean. Mark my words, Paragor’s dark arts are behind this tragedy.”
“I do mark them,” said Sir Gabriel. “And I mark something else as well. Blackwood trees are not known to have a hollow in the center, are they, Nock?”
“No, they are not,” Nock replied, and he sprang lightly up onto the stump. He tread carefully over the myriad of gray rings until he came to the center. There, he knelt and peered into a dark hole.
“I do not know how far down it goes,” Nock said, reaching into the hole. “It may pass beneath the ground even. But this is most unusual. Blackwood trees are solid to the core. Why the Ancient One has this strange hollow, I cannot say.”
“Could it have been done after the tree was felled?” asked Lady Merewen.
Kaliam sighed. “Too many questions, and far too few answers. I am afraid that we shall never know unless we capture those who felled this great tree.”
“The Ancient One may yet bring us a few answers,” Nock said. “For I kneel upon one of the most precious libraries in all The Realm.”
“What do you mean?” Mallik asked.
“The rings,” Kaliam whispered, staring at the huge stump with interest. “Nock, you read rings?”
Nock smiled proudly. “My family descends from a long line of readers, taught by King Eliam himself when Yewland was but a settlement. Bolt was better at it than I, but I may be able to glean something of value.”
Nock lay on the stump and traced his finger along the tiny gray ring that encircled the hollow center. He mumbled something and frowned. “When the center was removed,” Nock said, “many of the Ancient One’s first years were lost. This ring speaks of the sprouting of his first saplings, the beginning of the Blackwood Forest. He was very proud.”
“You mean this tree speaks?” Antoinette asked.
“Are you surprised?” Kaliam asked. “I believe you had a conversation with a mortiwraith in the chambers beneath the Castle of Alleble, did you not?”
“Yeah, but a tree?”
“The rings of most trees tell only the most general tales: those of fires, floods, or extremely cold winters,” Nock explained. “But King Eliam gave the blackwood trees a different kind of awareness. They do not have eyes or ears, but through wind and soil, bark and leaf, they sense much more than ordinary trees. And for those who have the skill, their rings tell fantastic tales.”
Antoinette looked down at the wood and ran her own finger along the sketchy gray circle nearest the edge. She wondered what the Ancient One said near the end of his very long life.
“He speaks of visits from the Master,” Nock said, reading from the center rings. “‘Long did the Master recline in my shade,’ he says, ‘and he spoke many kind things to me and told me of his plans.’”
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br /> “I can only guess how profoundly this history touches your heart, Nock,” Kaliam said gently. “But we need to discover more recent events.”
“You are right, of course, my Sentinel,” he replied. “I will progress outward more rapidly. Ah, here—this ring is disturbed! Let me read.”
Nock was quiet a moment. And then he began to read aloud. “‘Horror! Sorrow! A dark one has destroyed Torin! Alas!’ Let me skip a few circles now. ‘The Master brings them to me, and yes, my children will hold them down, keep them deep forever more! Sleep, foul ones. Sleep.’”
“The Seven Sleepers,” said Sir Oswyn.
“Yes,” Nock replied. “Wait, there is more here. ‘Will I keep it? The Master asks me to. I will. I will lock it in a place where no one will look. Though there are dark things now dwelling among my trees, they will not get it.’”
“What does that mean?” asked Aelic.
“I do not know,” said Nock.
“Nor I,” said Kaliam.
“Maybe that’s why there’s that hollow part in the center,” Antoinette suggested. “Maybe King Eliam put something there for safekeeping.”
“That makes sense.” Kaliam nodded. “But what was it? Nock, read on. See if you can determine what ‘it’ is.”
Nudging himself a few inches at a time, Nock followed the same ring around the massive stump. “Nothing so far. He tells of the arrival of Glimpses, the tree-dwellers, he calls them. He must mean my ancestors, the founders of Yewland! Remarkable! He speaks here of a terrible storm and of a fire started by lightning.”
Antoinette suddenly felt very cold.
“Here, he tells of the invaders with weak roots. ‘They hem my children in, but they cannot thrive among us. They will not drop seed here. This is the land given by the Master to the Firstborn. We will keep it pure.’”
“Nock, I am sorry,” Kaliam said. “But we must press on.”
“Wait, here, let me read far ahead. See, there is a break! I shall read. ‘I am afraid,’ says the Ancient One. ‘Something wicked has come. He touches me, and he is cold. He cannot have it. He does not have the power to take it!’” Antoinette and the others hung on each of Nock’s words.
The Rise of the Wrym Lord Page 16